You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“You’re okay to go home? It seems as though you’ve calmed down. You’ll talk to your doctor about what’s going on with the clumsiness and the—hallucinations.” He trips over the word. It is always a difficult one to say.

“Yes, but . . . I was kind of hoping I could stay over tonight.” Like we’re a real couple, I don’t say. He cannot be ready to banish me. I have never spent the night here, and I want to wake up next to him so badly. His face the first thing I see, his body the first thing I touch.

Another tremendous sigh, as though I am asking him to let me paint his walls neon yellow as opposed to sharing a bed for eight hours. “I really don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not? Tomorrow’s Saturday. You don’t have students on Saturday. And I can tell my parents I’m spending the night at a friend’s house. Easy.”

I want to spend the night, but I also need him to say that he thinks about one day going public with our relationship. I want him to say that he’s falling for me. I want him to say he will visit me in college. All the time.

I used to think I’d be satisfied with only the physical pieces of him, but I crave something deeper now. Love is gradual. A few more nights like this, and I know h

e will feel it too.

Perhaps he senses how deep that need is for me, or he realizes I have shattered all his potential excuses, because he says, “All right. You can stay. Just tonight, though, okay?”

I grin at him.

After we clean up and decide it’s time for bed, I use the bathroom connected to his room. It is very small—in fact, the whole apartment is, but it has never bothered me. I don’t need a lot of space. I open the drawers and cabinets and examine everything. My honeysuckle body lotion could fit right there, next to his aftershave, and I could line up my tubes of lipstick to the left of his Tylenol and cough syrup. I use his toothbrush, squeeze a pinky-nail-size amount of minty green onto it.

If I had allowed myself to continue to mope about my result, I might not be here. I might not have decided that I needed Arjun in my life not simply as a hookup or a fling, like I’ve had before, but as the real thing.

I’ve been in his bed more than a dozen times, but tonight when I slip between the sheets, it feels different. Foreign, but in a very good way. I’ve only ever shared a bed with Tovah. She used to accuse me of touching her with my cold feet and hogging the bedcovers, which I insisted I never did. Arjun’s sheets are too thin; at home I sleep with several extra blankets because I am always cold. But I imagine his body heat will make up for that.

He switches off the lamp, sinking the room into darkness, but he stays on the other side of the bed. I assumed he would arrange himself next to me, drape an arm across my stomach, plant a kiss between my shoulder blades.

But none of that happens. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek in frustration. Perhaps I have one more way to keep myself in control long enough for him to realize he is falling for me. One last secret to reveal.

“I’ve decided something,” I say, and he must be nearing sleep because he gives a slightly muffled “Mm?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of research about what’s going to happen to me when I—when I develop Huntington’s.” The when, the tangibility of it, trips on my tongue. “I have a plan.”

“That’s good,” he says sleepily. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

I smile. It is good. Then I choose my words carefully. “I won’t let this thing hold me back. I’ll go to conservatory, and I’ll do whatever I can to become a soloist as soon as possible.” Even though my hands quake when I play. “I’m going to travel, too. With you, hopefully. Until the symptoms start. And then, well, that will be it. I will be done. With . . . living.”

It is the first time I’ve uttered my plan aloud. There is a poetry to it, a quiet sadness that lives inside all my favorite concertos and preludes.

For a while he doesn’t speak, and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep. But then he says, “Adina—” and I shift to face him, putting a finger to his lips. He draws in a deep breath.

“I don’t want to say anything else about it. Not tonight, okay? I just want to enjoy this with you.”

He nods in the darkness and finally pulls me tight against him, his chest against my back. My bones and muscles melt victoriously into his touch.

The next time I see him, I will insist our relationship cannot stay a secret any longer. I will tell him I’ve fallen so hard that spending these past three days without him was like living without oxygen. Without music. On vacations from school we’ll go to Israel and India and anywhere else we want. We’ll eat falafel and dunk bread in neon curries and paint ourselves with mud from the Dead Sea. We’ll listen to symphonies in all the world capitals. And someday, even just for a short time, I’ll be up on that stage, knowing that when my performance is over, he will be waiting for me.

Twenty-eight

Tovah

ADINA CREEPS INSIDE THE HOUSE with the grace of a cat. One of Ima’s knitted scarves, a maroon that matches the flush on her cheeks, is loose around her neck. Her hair, as usual, is long and wild. Beautiful.

I sip a vanilla protein shake as she tiptoes from the hall to the kitchen, unaware I’m watching her. Waiting to catch her and interrogate her.

I quit track—which I joined only to put it on my JHU application—the day after my rejection, but I can’t seem to give up running entirely. I won’t allow my muscles to atrophy. My internal clock wakes me up early, even on Saturday mornings. Most exercise is prohibited on Shabbat unless it relaxes you. These days, running is one of the few things that does.

“Are you just now getting home?” I ask.

Adina jumps, startled by my voice. “Good morning to you, too.”